So, most analyses have thus far sought to determine the net number of seats Republicans would gain in the 2010. However, this elides the fact that there are conservative Democrats who vote with Republicans anyway (like the Blue Dogs who voted against the healthcare bill). Therefore, the real question is whether Congress would be significantly more conservative (rather than Republican) following the November 2010 elections. If most of the Democrats that lose their seats are conservatives (and, after all, conservative districts are also the ones most likely to change hands from Dem to Pub), then there will be little practical difference in the composition of the House and Senate. Any predictions along these lines?
Obviously, if the Republicans take either house, that’ll make a big difference because the majority party controls the schedule and what bills get to the floor.
But lets assume that doesn’t happen. Lets say the Republicans pick up a bunch of seats that are now being occupied by conservative Democrats in, say, the House. Two things will happen. First, the House Democratic caucus will get more liberal, since a bunch of conservative Democrats got defeated. The House in general will be more conservative. Even though the Blue Dogs are more conservative than most Democrats, they tend to be more liberal than their Republican opponents. So the Republican that beats him will probably be more conservative than he is.
And remember, while Blue Dogs vote with the Republicans more than the rest of their caucus does, they still vote with their caucus a lot.
You are missing something. If the Republicans take control of the House, there will be no end to bogus investigations and fake scandals. Think Ken Starr x100. There’s even talk of reviving the government shutdown.
The OP is ok though. It’s likely that even typical midterm losses will stop the remainder of the Dem’s agenda in its tracks. So we can forget about a meaningful climate change bill for the next 2 years. And it’s hard to see another substantial stimulus package being passed. So if we want to avoid a Japan-style lost decade, Congress better appoint a couple of solid economists to the FOMC – and unconventional, untested monetary policy better work.
I keep hearing conservatives say that this fall is going to be a repeat of the 1994 Contract With America congressional takeover. What I haven’t heard them address is that, 2 years later, Clinton got re-elected.
New faces, same idiocy.
Remember, Congress is the opposite of progress.
Like this, but in Congress!
What I haven’t heard them address is what agenda/platform analagous to the CWA they have got this year, other than “NO!”
They’re doing their best to help America by using every legal means to stop ill-advised legislation from harming the homeland.
But when they retake Congress, Democrats who do the same will be unpatriotic obstructionists.
It is abundantly clear by now that 55-70 percent of the american people are not in favor of items in the liberal agenda, depending on the topic. A center-right country has gotten a look at what happens when you have Democrats in charge of congress and the presidency and they are recoiling. An epic slaughter is on the horizon for Democrats this November. Anyone who claims otherwise is whistling past the graveyard in between sips from the partisan Kool-aid cup.
Look at Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska. He is busy voting like a Republican so he won’t get blasted out of office. Real Clear Politics has 32 seats in as toss-ups in the election. 31 of them are Democrat incumbents. 24 seats are listed as “Leans GOP”. 21 of them are Democrats.
President Obama’s approval ratings are in the 40’s and continuing to fall. The big “strategy” for the Democrats this fall seems to be “Those darn Republicans will be just like Bush!”. No discussion of what they’ve accomplished because they know the majority of the population disagrees with it anyway.
So go ahead Democrats. Keep talking about how bad the Arizona illegal alien law is that 70 percent of Americans support. Follow that up with how great Obamacare is going to be…eventually. And while you’re at it, let’s talk some more about Cap and Trade.
About a third of the country thinks these are great ideas. Push them boldly.
Is this an example of Poe’s Law made manifest? Not being american, I’d have thought you had longer political attention spans than this.
Though Republicans did retain control of Congress for 10 more years after that.
Could it be that he got credit for the things the Republican congress did?
There is a chart on 538 somewhere showing how liberal or conservative the house will be depending on how many seats the GOP wins.
I don’t have it, but it was from left to right (for level of ideology) and basically shaped like a stairstep. It went straight down as dem seats were lost, and once the GOP got the majority it shoots to the right and goes straight down again.
So the point is that most of the seats the dems will lose (esp in the house) will be blue dog seats. So it isn’t going to affect the liberalness of the house. If anything, 230 dem house members with 25 fewer blue dogs will be more liberal than the current one. There have been several times the blue dog caucus has watered down legislation. With their caucus cut in half the progressive caucus (which has 80+ members last time I checked) will have far more sway in legislation. Twenty five blue dogs can’t affect legislation the way 50 can.
At the same time, if the blue dogs are going to get voted out of office, the GOP may convince a few to become republicans and give themselves the majority that way. So that is something to worry about.
Any democrat is better than any republican. But if the dems are going to lose seats, thank god they will lose blue dogs and not progressives.
In the senate something similar will happen. Lincoln and Bayh are gone, but more progressive senators will stay on.
So the end result is the 2 parties become even more polarized. All the conservative dems are purged while all the non-crazy republicans are purged. Soon it’ll be all Mitch McConnells’ and Bernie Sanders’.
You laugh now, but in 2080 it will be people like me laughing about what a success Obamacare has been.
As far as the immigration bill, it is all politics. And I love what the dems are doing. Right now the GOP is pushing latinos away as hard as they can to appeal to the tea party. So the dems are stepping in and playing good guy to win over latino voters.
Even Karl Rove knew the GOP was toast w/o latino voters. Had Kerry done slightly better among latino voters, he would’ve won Nevada, Colorado & New Mexico, and as a result the presidency (even w/o Ohio).
Let the GOP push latinos out of their caucus. Soon non-whites will be 35% of the electorate, and many won’t go near the GOP.
Polls show most people support liberal issues on the issues. Ask people about energy policy, tax policy, government role in public life, health care, education, foreign policy, etc and almost always the opinions of the public are in line with liberal ideology and agendas.
Progressive taxes, ending the Iraq war, sustainable energy investments, universal health care, humanitarian foreign policy, a problem solving government, etc. These are all issues a majority of the public support.
Ask people about supply side tax cuts, staying in Iraq indefinately, ignoring climate change, raising the social security age, abolishing medicare, keeping private health care the way it is, weakening government, etc. and see the results.
In 2080, everyone will be trying to take credit for Obamacare. Or, more likely, for the better system which will have replaced it by then.
I think Clinton getting re-elected has a lot more with him shifting somewhat to the right after 1994 and the fact that he ran against Bob Dole. I think if he’d tried to stay the course or if the Republicans had found a more charismatic candidate, Clinton very well could have lost.
In either case, I think I agree with the general sentiment here, that the Republicans will likely win a number of seats, but mostly from more conservative Democrats; I think we’re unlikely to see any of the more liberal Dems lose since their constituents are more likely to be happy about what Congress as been up to. So, like others have said, I see the Republicans probably getting a majority in the House, but the numbers will probably be much closer and more polarized, so I don’t expect much to happen in the two years to follow.
Clinton was very beatable in '96. But not by Bob Dole by any stretch of the imagination. Dole wouldn’t have beat Carter in 1980. Hell, he wouldn’t have been able to beat Hoover in '32.
One reason is the gun issue. Bill Clinton himself said, in his 1995 State of the Union address, that it was the gun laws he signed that were responsible for the Dems losing both sides of Congress. Bob Dole was in a position to block both the Brady Bill and the assault weapons ban, and he blocked neither. Not only that, Dole voted for the Crime Bill that contained the assault weapons ban, and then later failed to follow through on repealing it like he promised.
So that faction of the conservative right and independents were not going to be very gung ho on Dole, and that is a large voting block.
Had another, charismatic, truly pro-gun Republican gotten the nomination, pushed the idea that if people liked the direction the economy was going it was to the credit of the Republican Congress, and really flouted what a scum bag Clinton was, and get Perot locked in a rubber room where he belonged,
I think they could have won.
But all that is water under the bridge.
How is this any different than Monday-morning quarterbacking, or being an armchair fight professor? If George Foreman had a third arm and a titanium skull, he would’ve beat Muhammed Ali.
It’s an election from 14 years ago. How could I be anything but?
At the time I actively worked to prevent Bob Dole from being the nominee.